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Browsing by Author "Hassenstab, Jason J."
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Item Multimodal brain age estimates relate to Alzheimer disease biomarkers and cognition in early stages: a cross-sectional observational study(eLife Sciences, 2023-01-06) Millar, Peter R.; Gordon, Brian A.; Luckett, Patrick H.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Cruchaga, Carlos; Fagan, Anne M.; Hassenstab, Jason J.; Perrin, Richard J.; Schindler, Suzanne E.; Allegri, Ricardo F.; Day, Gregory S.; Farlow, Martin R.; Mori, Hiroshi; Nübling, Georg; The Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network; Bateman, Randall J.; Morris, John C.; Ances, Beau M.; Neurology, School of MedicineBackground: Estimates of 'brain-predicted age' quantify apparent brain age compared to normative trajectories of neuroimaging features. The brain age gap (BAG) between predicted and chronological age is elevated in symptomatic Alzheimer disease (AD) but has not been well explored in presymptomatic AD. Prior studies have typically modeled BAG with structural MRI, but more recently other modalities, including functional connectivity (FC) and multimodal MRI, have been explored. Methods: We trained three models to predict age from FC, structural (S), or multimodal MRI (S+FC) in 390 amyloid-negative cognitively normal (CN/A-) participants (18-89 years old). In independent samples of 144 CN/A-, 154 CN/A+, and 154 cognitively impaired (CI; CDR > 0) participants, we tested relationships between BAG and AD biomarkers of amyloid and tau, as well as a global cognitive composite. Results: All models predicted age in the control training set, with the multimodal model outperforming the unimodal models. All three BAG estimates were significantly elevated in CI compared to controls. FC-BAG was significantly reduced in CN/A+ participants compared to CN/A-. In CI participants only, elevated S-BAG and S+FC BAG were associated with more advanced AD pathology and lower cognitive performance. Conclusions: Both FC-BAG and S-BAG are elevated in CI participants. However, FC and structural MRI also capture complementary signals. Specifically, FC-BAG may capture a unique biphasic response to presymptomatic AD pathology, while S-BAG may capture pathological progression and cognitive decline in the symptomatic stage. A multimodal age-prediction model improves sensitivity to healthy age differences.Item Serum neurofilament light chain levels are associated with white matter integrity in autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease(Elsevier, 2020-08-01) Schultz, Stephanie A.; Strain, Jeremy F.; Adedokun, Adedamola; Wang, Qing; Preische, Oliver; Kuhle, Jens; Flores, Shaney; Keefe, Sarah; Dincer, Aylin; Ances, Beau M.; Berman, Sarah B.; Brickman, Adam M.; Cash, David M.; Chhatwal, Jasmeer; Cruchaga, Carlos; Ewers, Michael; Fox, Nick N.; Ghetti, Bernardino; Goate, Alison; Graff-Radford, Neill R.; Hassenstab, Jason J.; Hornbeck, Russ; Jack, Clifford; Johnson, Keith; Joseph-Mathurin, Nelly; Karch, Celeste M.; Koeppe, Robert A.; Lee, Athene K. W.; Levin, Johannes; Masters, Colin; McDade, Eric; Perrin, Richard J.; Rowe, Christopher C.; Salloway, Stephen; Saykin, Andrew J.; Sperling, Reisa; Su, Yi; Villemagne, Victor L.; Vöglein, Jonathan; Weiner, Michael; Xiong, Chengjie; Fagan, Anne M.; Morris, John C.; Bateman, Randall J.; Benzinger, Tammie L. S.; Jucker, Mathias; Gordon, Brian A.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineNeurofilament light chain (NfL) is a protein that is selectively expressed in neurons. Increased levels of NfL measured in either cerebrospinal fluid or blood is thought to be a biomarker of neuronal damage in neurodegenerative diseases. However, there have been limited investigations relating NfL to the concurrent measures of white matter (WM) decline that it should reflect. White matter damage is a common feature of Alzheimer's disease. We hypothesized that serum levels of NfL would associate with WM lesion volume and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics cross-sectionally in 117 autosomal dominant mutation carriers (MC) compared to 84 non-carrier (NC) familial controls as well as in a subset (N = 41) of MC with longitudinal NfL and MRI data. In MC, elevated cross-sectional NfL was positively associated with WM hyperintensity lesion volume, mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity and negatively with fractional anisotropy. Greater change in NfL levels in MC was associated with larger changes in fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, and radial diffusivity, all indicative of reduced WM integrity. There were no relationships with NfL in NC. Our results demonstrate that blood-based NfL levels reflect WM integrity and supports the view that blood levels of NfL are predictive of WM damage in the brain. This is a critical result in improving the interpretability of NfL as a marker of brain integrity, and for validating this emerging biomarker for future use in clinical and research settings across multiple neurodegenerative diseases.